Rafael de La Garza II

PROFESSIONAL MIS-CONDUCT DETERMIED BY STATE BAR OF TEXAS - see photo - Sub-par at best - Rafael was hired to represent me in a funeral home negligence case. The contract was signed 11/9/21 - This was a 40/60 contingency case. The original petition was not filed until 3/14/22. 4 months later. It took ...a year for him to get a court date and two years to figure out that the defendant did not have insurance. Once he found this out, he was very slothful with the case. Furthermore, after finding this out, rather than representing me in deposition, he had his sister do so. Frankly, other than emails I never spoke with Rafael after the initial consultation when he was eager to get me under contract. Previous to this, as part of the process it I had asked a question regarding the law for funeral homes to maintain insurance. He assured me it was not legal, when I asked him if it wasn't legal then why did the TX Funeral Service not find this - he then deferred to an "expert" and advised me that in fact they (funeral homes) in TX are not required to carry insurance. As an attorney representing funeral home negligence cases in said state, I would expect any attorney to be knowledgeable about basic facts. The case continued. After I requested a continuance, he asked to withdraw which I agreed to as I had not been pleased with his representation. However, when he withdrew he did not advise me that I would be bare and a per se litigant. Additionally there were several other areas when he was not competent and or missed important and relevant details. Although there was no insurance, there was no attempt to ascertain assets, or even file a Lis Pendens (preventing the defendant from disposing of assets during the duration of the case. He's quick to get you under contract but that's about the only thing he's quick with, except divesting efforts when there is not big insurance policy. I'd like to think that 2 years is an excessive amount of time to determine there is no insurance. In my experience, when you do a service you want to be clear about how you get paid. Highly dissatisfied.

He was my court appointed attorney for a very small case. He ended up resetting my court date on 4 different occasions and actually gave me legal advice to plead guilty on a case i was actually very innocent on. I went and talked to another lawyer and ended up hiring Bill Knox to represent me. 3 days... later and $2,500 later Bill got my case dismissed.